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I see it as a similar problem as we (humans) have with all systems: we mistake the system for the actual solution. It's not. You need to focus on the real prob

I see it as a similar problem as we (humans) have with all systems: we mistake the system for the actual solution. It's not. You need to focus on the real problem at hand, and devise/adapt a correct solution in context. Systems and frameworks provide helpful tools and templates, but they all require contextual adaptation. FWIW this is what I like about the foundations of Agile for project management. The manifesto points all direct you away from your tools and processes and towards the actual problem. eg "People over process," "working code over documentation," etc. Basically the people on the team should focus on working software, communicating with the customer, and adapting to change. Their processes, documentation, contracts, and plans should all be aligned to that solution, not the other way around. And out of that... we got millions or scrum certificate weilding alcolytes who will tell you that if your project failed, it's because you didn't do their system religiously enough. God certainly has a sense of irony.

GekkePrutser 5y ago
Yeah a lot of companies go like "we're going agile" and just do the tools bit with Jira and its Kanban and rigid time management. It's more like ticking boxes and pretending to know what they're doing than actual agile project management. So now we're stuck with a lot of overhead crap and even more workload. And the system actually slows us down when we try to adapt to a changing environment. Problem is mainly that this happened because the director of project management really liked the reports from Jira and thus the main reason for it all is to get as much data as possible in there (notice how 'accurate data' does not seem to be a focus :) )
- BoxOfRain 5y ago
  Jira to me is a mostly a tool for managers to coerce developers into a more manager-friendly interpretation of “agile” than anything else rather than something developers would use out of choice. When you’re doing something for the sole purpose of keeping someone off your back about it then you inevitably half-arse it, so in reality we’re paying Atlassian a small fortune for nothing more than a wall of fairly bullshit estimates. Don’t even get me started on how slow and flakey the UI is on the cloud version, it’s such an intolerably poor quality bit of software to actually use as a dev. I’d be very surprised if Atlassian actually dogfooded the cloud version because it really is an abysmal effort.
  - GekkePrutser 5y ago
    Yeah and the thing is... I'm not even a developer. I'm an IT Architect. It's just a really poor fit so they 'bend' all the development stuff to make it mean other things (like the epics). When you do need that you know the methodology is just a poor fit. But anyway... they want the entire Enterprise IT team to work off Jira because "we need to be agile". And because of the cool reports. So the director can sit at his desk and see the cool graphs and pretend they actually show him what's going on. Obviously they don't :) For example, some of the stuff we're not recording is how teams work together on inter-team stuff (like endpoint architects working to enable something for the network team). Everyone just makes up their own labels. It was a mess from day 1. And yeah it's slow but not super slow. Pretty sure we have onprem though. Because I can only access it on VPN. Unless they fiddled with some port forwarder which I wouldn't put past them.
TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
This is not unusual. Something like ISO9001 Quality Management is literally a checklist of pleasant aspirations which leaves companies to define the details for themselves. So as long as you define what "leadership" or "customer satisfaction" (and the rest) mean to you, and you have a vaguely plausible but not necessarily effective process that ticks each of the boxes, you have a quality management process. And you can apply for - and will probably get - formal quality management certification. In reality you can have zero actual leadership or customer satisfaction. But you have a process - so OK.
- vidarh 5y ago
  One of my jobs a long time ago was to update the quality management process of a relatively large company. I wasn't responsible for the actual text changes, but properly integrating them. It was the first time I'd read ISO 9001 documentation end to end, and it was eye opening. Total bullshit. It ensured there was a paper trail documenting the total bullshit, of course, but it nevertheless was total bullshit that said a lot about describing what was done, but nothing about ensuring it actually worked as it should. This same place had locked doors to the interior stairwell so consultants like me could not even get into areas we were not assigned to because of work done for clients like the police, but had confidential documents about police infrastructure sitting unprotected on the machine I was assigned. To me that was a good indication they ran everything including security how they handled quality management: it was just a box ticking exercise. Document things and track deviations rather than care about actually getting things right.
- tempodox 5y ago
  My shorthand for that is “Bureaucracy allows us to ignore reality”. If we ignore reality enough, bureaucracy / following a process will give us predictability and control, and will shield us from unwelcome challenges. Reality, otoh, is unpredictable and merciless in confronting us with challenges. The more mandatory we can make that process, the more “following process” becomes the sole criterion for “doing it right”, the more we'll be able to insulate ourselves from bothering with the whims of reality. It seems clear to me that this dynamic has the structure of a perverse incentive, even more so when you have considerable influence over the rules of that process. This isn't to say that we should just do away with all process. There are good, even life-saving reasons why processes exist, but a process alone is no cure-all, and an overdose will paralyze us.
darepublic 5y ago
It's like a finger pointing at the moon
- ohthehugemanate 5y ago
  excellent reference, and bang on. I will use this the next time I try to explain the problem.
- topologie 5y ago
  Love that expression. I recently read this about it: https://essenceofbuddhism.wordpress.com/2016/04/19/what-the-finger-pointing-to-the-moon-analogy-really-means-from-zen-buddhism-the-buddha-in-the-shurangama-sutra/ https://essenceofbuddhism.wordpress.com/2016/04/19/what-the-...

GekkePrutser 5y ago

Yeah a lot of companies go like "we're going agile" and just do the tools bit with Jira and its Kanban and rigid time management. It's more like ticking boxes and pretending to know what they're doing than actual agile project management. So now we're stuck with a lot of overhead crap and even more workload. And the system actually slows us down when we try to adapt to a changing environment. Problem is mainly that this happened because the director of project management really liked the reports from Jira and thus the main reason for it all is to get as much data as possible in there (notice how 'accurate data' does not seem to be a focus :) )

BoxOfRain 5y ago
Jira to me is a mostly a tool for managers to coerce developers into a more manager-friendly interpretation of “agile” than anything else rather than something developers would use out of choice. When you’re doing something for the sole purpose of keeping someone off your back about it then you inevitably half-arse it, so in reality we’re paying Atlassian a small fortune for nothing more than a wall of fairly bullshit estimates. Don’t even get me started on how slow and flakey the UI is on the cloud version, it’s such an intolerably poor quality bit of software to actually use as a dev. I’d be very surprised if Atlassian actually dogfooded the cloud version because it really is an abysmal effort.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  Yeah and the thing is... I'm not even a developer. I'm an IT Architect. It's just a really poor fit so they 'bend' all the development stuff to make it mean other things (like the epics). When you do need that you know the methodology is just a poor fit. But anyway... they want the entire Enterprise IT team to work off Jira because "we need to be agile". And because of the cool reports. So the director can sit at his desk and see the cool graphs and pretend they actually show him what's going on. Obviously they don't :) For example, some of the stuff we're not recording is how teams work together on inter-team stuff (like endpoint architects working to enable something for the network team). Everyone just makes up their own labels. It was a mess from day 1. And yeah it's slow but not super slow. Pretty sure we have onprem though. Because I can only access it on VPN. Unless they fiddled with some port forwarder which I wouldn't put past them.

TheOtherHobbes 5y ago

This is not unusual. Something like ISO9001 Quality Management is literally a checklist of pleasant aspirations which leaves companies to define the details for themselves. So as long as you define what "leadership" or "customer satisfaction" (and the rest) mean to you, and you have a vaguely plausible but not necessarily effective process that ticks each of the boxes, you have a quality management process. And you can apply for - and will probably get - formal quality management certification. In reality you can have zero actual leadership or customer satisfaction. But you have a process - so OK.

vidarh 5y ago
One of my jobs a long time ago was to update the quality management process of a relatively large company. I wasn't responsible for the actual text changes, but properly integrating them. It was the first time I'd read ISO 9001 documentation end to end, and it was eye opening. Total bullshit. It ensured there was a paper trail documenting the total bullshit, of course, but it nevertheless was total bullshit that said a lot about describing what was done, but nothing about ensuring it actually worked as it should. This same place had locked doors to the interior stairwell so consultants like me could not even get into areas we were not assigned to because of work done for clients like the police, but had confidential documents about police infrastructure sitting unprotected on the machine I was assigned. To me that was a good indication they ran everything including security how they handled quality management: it was just a box ticking exercise. Document things and track deviations rather than care about actually getting things right.
tempodox 5y ago
My shorthand for that is “Bureaucracy allows us to ignore reality”. If we ignore reality enough, bureaucracy / following a process will give us predictability and control, and will shield us from unwelcome challenges. Reality, otoh, is unpredictable and merciless in confronting us with challenges. The more mandatory we can make that process, the more “following process” becomes the sole criterion for “doing it right”, the more we'll be able to insulate ourselves from bothering with the whims of reality. It seems clear to me that this dynamic has the structure of a perverse incentive, even more so when you have considerable influence over the rules of that process. This isn't to say that we should just do away with all process. There are good, even life-saving reasons why processes exist, but a process alone is no cure-all, and an overdose will paralyze us.

darepublic 5y ago

It's like a finger pointing at the moon

ohthehugemanate 5y ago
excellent reference, and bang on. I will use this the next time I try to explain the problem.
topologie 5y ago
Love that expression. I recently read this about it: https://essenceofbuddhism.wordpress.com/2016/04/19/what-the-finger-pointing-to-the-moon-analogy-really-means-from-zen-buddhism-the-buddha-in-the-shurangama-sutra/ https://essenceofbuddhism.wordpress.com/2016/04/19/what-the-...